About BoneSupporting Life, Capturing History
2019-03-20T18:44:00Z https://aboutbone.com/feed/atom/https://en.wordpress.com/i/webclip.pngRoyhttps://aboutbone.com/?p=15872019-03-20T18:44:00Z2019-03-20T18:05:06ZAntarctica. The first image that comes to most people’s mind is probably not one of bones, and looking for them is not why I went. For years I had dreamed of seeing the glaciated terrestrial landscape and the iceberg-laden waters described over 100 years ago during the “Age of Heroic Exploration.” I also wanted to…

]]>Antarctica. The first image that comes to most people’s mind is probably not one of bones, and looking for them is not why I went. For years I had dreamed of seeing the glaciated terrestrial landscape and the iceberg-laden waters described over 100 years ago during the “Age of Heroic Exploration.” I also wanted to experience a bit, just a bit, of the weather that made the early explorations heroic.

As whalers and sealers of the 19th and early 20th centuries discovered, the waters surrounding Antarctica were and are surprisingly rich with wildlife. Near the bottom of this food pyramid are trillions of krill, which are inch-long shrimp-like critters that whales, seals, and penguins find delectable and life-sustaining. Whales and seals take huge gulps of krill-dense sea water, close their mouths part way, and expel the water while retaining the krill against their baleen filters (whales) or interdigitated teeth (seals). Penguins swallow some krill for themselves and once back on land regurgitate the rest for their demanding, ever-hungry chicks. Once the chicks are fledged, the penguins spend the rest of the year at sea.

burned out hull of whaling factory ship

So logically there are lots of bones scattered on the surrounding ocean floor, likely well preserved due to low temperatures. They are tantalizingly close, yet invisible and inaccessible to casual observers. In several bays the whale bones must be stacked deep, since factory ships would anchor in protected areas during the hunting season, process blubber, and discard the rest.

Before whalers drove their prey to near extinction, they realized that the bones as well as the blubber had value. They began boiling the skeletons to extract fat and then grinding the bones for fertilizer. (At about the same time, bison bones, bleaching on the prairies of the Great Plains, were found to have commercial value for the same reason. See blog post When Bone Piles Became Cash Cows.)

Local penguins number in the millions, and not all die at sea. I came across several of their bones on rocky areas, which ignited my interest, and I began to search for more Antarctic bones. Scavenging birds (skuas, sheathbills) can quickly strip a fresh carcass clean. Because of the low temperature (30-35oF in coastal areas during the summer) and low intensity sunlight (or no sunlight during the winter), the bones erode slowly, especially the larger, harder ones. Also, on Antarctica there are no calcium-seeking rodents, which on temperate terrain gnaw and recycle fallen bones and antlers.

Gentoo penguin skull, thigh bone, spine, breast bone

Here are some pictures of penguin bones I found. I did not bring any of my discoveries home, because it is against international agreements for tourists to remove anything from Antarctica much less eat, drink, or go to the bathroom there. And consider this: Antarctica is the first non-smoking continent!

Once I had my bone-seeking adrenaline racing, I came across some scattered seal and whale bones and was directed to an intriguing, semi-reconstructed whale skeleton. Apparently some enterprising bone lover roughly assembled vertebrae and ribs in line with a massive and likely unmovable skull.

On the way home, I stayed overnight in Punta Arenas, Chile, at the tip of South America. My beachcombing continued. Two long strolls along the shore turned up a fascinating assortment of bones. A handful were two-inch long segments of bovine skeletons, apparently sawn to this dimension for ships’ soup pots.

My best finds were the fierce-looking jawbone of a sizable creature (dog?) and a finger or toe bone of a behemoth (sea lion?). I will let you know when a zoologist has positively identified these for me. In the meantime, keep your eyes open for bones. You may be surprised where they turn up. I was, and happy about it.

]]>0Royhttps://aboutbone.com/?p=9792019-03-01T14:38:21Z2019-02-27T09:25:38ZAntwerp, Belgium’s second largest city, started as a river port during Roman times and grew to become the world’s diamond center. Local legend tells of a giant who would extract tolls from boatmen navigating the river. He cut off the hands of those resisting his tax. A Roman legionnaire ended this nonsense by slaying the…

]]>Antwerp, Belgium’s second largest city, started as a river port during Roman times and grew to become the world’s diamond center.

Local legend tells of a giant who would extract tolls from boatmen navigating the river. He cut off the hands of those resisting his tax. A Roman legionnaire ended this nonsense by slaying the ogre and flinging his huge hand into the river. Hantwerpen was the spelling of the city for centuries and means throwing the hand.

Some huge bones, unearthed years later, substantiated the legend. The local museum displayed these remains as belonging to the giant until somebody realized that the bones were a fossilized rib and shoulder blade from a two-million-year-old right whale. Scholarly research ensued and turned up aanwerp—soil deposited in a river delta—as the more likely source of the city’s name. Did this create a municipal identity crisis? Momentarily, perhaps.

Undaunted by the bare-bone facts, the locals have commemorated the brave legionnaire’s fictional heroism with a bronze sculpture, which is the main plaza’s centerpiece. (A stream of water courses from the amputated hand.) Also, hands remain on the city’s coat of arms, sweet shops sell hand-shaped cookies and chocolates, and the hallmark for locally produced gold and silverware is, naturally, a hand.

The notorious whale bones, now accurately labeled, are still on display at the local Museum aan de Stroon.

]]>12Royhttps://aboutbone.com/?p=15312019-03-01T23:04:47Z2019-02-15T19:41:23ZIt may have started with primitive man clacking a couple of charred mastodon rib bones together. He smiled. Clack-clack. Fellow cave dwellers looked up. Then with a flip of the wrist, clackity-clackity-clack. Music was born. In several forms, “playing the bones” has continued to the present time. Various museums display pairs of ancient Egyptian bone…

]]>It may have started with primitive man clacking a couple of charred mastodon rib bones together. He smiled. Clack-clack. Fellow cave dwellers looked up. Then with a flip of the wrist, clackity-clackity-clack. Music was born.

In several forms, “playing the bones” has continued to the present time. Various museums display pairs of ancient Egyptian bone clappers in the shape of forearms and hands. I have never seen two pairs of these displayed together, so I am uncertain whether the clappers were played with a set in each hand, like castanets and finger cymbals, or if a complete set was a single pair and held in just one hand, like spoons.

Shakespeare knew of the art. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bottom commands, “I have a reasonable good ear in music; let us have the tongs and the bones.”

William Sidney Mount, well-known for his depictions of everyday life, painted The Bone Player in 1856. A New York art agent commissioned the painting along with The Banjo Player in order to make lithographs from them to sell in Europe.

Illustrator Henry Holiday penned a number of cartoons to illustrate Lewis Carrol’s The Hunting of the Snark, published in 1876. This drawing accompanies the verse that follows and are from Fit the Seventh, The Banker’s Fate:

Down he sank in a chair—ran his hands through his hair— and chanted in mimsiest tones. Words whose utter inanity proved his insanity, while he rattled a couple of bones.

Interest continues today. Here is an example of a virtuoso on YouTube playing the bones; and at Amazonyou can purchase your own set made of beechwood, ebony, rosewood, or maple. If you want the osseous originals, however, just ask for a doggie bag after you have feasted on barbecued spare ribs. Then clack away as your ancestors did 40,000 years ago.

]]>0Royhttps://aboutbone.com/?p=14992019-02-07T14:37:36Z2019-01-29T23:49:28ZThe word orthopedic was coined in 1741 by Nicolas Andry, a French physician who wrote the first book on the topic. The book’s title was Orthopédie. Ortho- is Greek for straight or correct, as in orthodoxy (correct belief) and orthodontics (straight teeth). The pédie is also Greek and stems from child. In his book, Andry…

]]>The word orthopedic was coined in 1741 by Nicolas Andry, a French physician who wrote the first book on the topic. The book’s title was Orthopédie. Ortho- is Greek for straight or correct, as in orthodoxy (correct belief) and orthodontics (straight teeth).

The pédie is also Greek and stems from child. In his book, Andry described how families and physicians could prevent and correct skeletal deformities in children. Of course, the means were entirely non-surgical because it would be another 100 years before general anesthesia and the concept of elective surgery came about. The graphic that Andry chose for the frontspiece of his book to illustrate his concept of straightening a child remains iconic.

In his 1828 monumental treatise, An American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster simplified the spelling of Old World entries including colour, programme, cheque, and encyclopaedia. He probably would have also objected to aeroplane, had it been around then. Despite the lexicographer’s best efforts, we still have two spellings for bone surgery: orthopedic and orthopaedic.

Some stuffed shirts are reluctant to give up that “a” in orthopaedic because they say that pedo also means foot. These purists insist that orthopaedic means straight children, which was Andry’s intent, whereas orthopedic might mean just straight feet. Somehow, American paediatricians long ago became pediatricians without apparent loss of professional standing.

To my mind, Wikipedia brings the debate to an end. It says that pedo- relates to 1) children, 2) feet, 3) soil, and 4) flatulence. Or should it be flaetulence?

I

If you have a photo of a bone or a bone-made object, Please send it to me. The Same goes for ideas for future posts. Eclectic is always good. For instance, I saw this License plate frame on the way to work this morning. What does it mean? Bones are everywhere once you start looking. I can’t stop! happy hunting!

]]>0Royhttps://aboutbone.com/?p=14722019-01-29T01:30:41Z2019-01-14T01:56:30ZTo flavor soups and sauces, many cooks traditionally use broth derived from simmered bones of fish, fowl, or four-footed critters. In recent years, bone-broth bars have appeared and offer patrons a non-caffeinated, nutritious alternative to coffee or tea. In the more health-conscious of these establishments, the proprietors tout these elixirs for their filling, cleansing, and…

]]>To flavor soups and sauces, many cooks traditionally use broth derived from simmered bones of fish, fowl, or four-footed critters. In recent years, bone-broth bars have appeared and offer patrons a non-caffeinated, nutritious alternative to coffee or tea. In the more health-conscious of these establishments, the proprietors tout these elixirs for their filling, cleansing, and de-toxing capabilities.

I wanted to decide whether a daily cup of bone broth should be part of my annual January resolution for a healthy life. On the internet, I found four broth-serving establishments within a bike-friendly five-mile radius of home. Within the same range there were three Vietnamese cafes that serve pho, a traditional soup of spiced bone broth, rice noodles, and meat. Off I went.

I started at a broth “bar” that was an
eight-foot square kiosk in a country mart’s passageway. The cheerful teenage
attendant offered me a sample, which she poured straight from a refrigerated
bottle. I was her only customer, so we chatted while I sipped. With my game
face on, I thought, “Definitely don’t drink this stuff cold.” She touted
broth’s virtues, which on the business’s website include increased energy,
sharpened focus, optimization of vital functions, and body fat reduction.
She also explained how the owner obtained the bones and prepared the broth.
Having picked her brain, I felt it only decent to buy a pint bottle of beef
broth. She heated several ounces on a hotplate but had to go to a coffee shop
down the way to get a paper cup. I took the rest home for my wife to taste. We
shared our doubts about the long-term viability of this particular bone broth
business.

A week later I decided to have pho for lunch preceded by visits to two bone broth bars and followed by a stop at another. The first was a store large enough to walk into. It had both chicken and beef bone broths that were already hot. There were also frozen packets for take-home. Again, I was the only customer, and the clerk was helpful although mistaken in her belief that broth contains collagen. In fact, bone is collagen-rich, but heating it degrades the collagen into gelatin. Then when swallowed, digestive enzymes break gelatin into its constituent amino acids before they are absorbed. It is beyond belief that our bodies would then reassemble these molecules into gelatin, much less collagen. (Consider this analogy: bald men eating hair.) This store’s website, in addition to repeating the kiosk’s claims, indicates that “collagen and gelatin found in bone broth build and help repair the GI tract” and are also good for immune support and joint pain relief. The vegetable soups I sampled tasted better than the broths, which I considered bland and certainly not a substitute for coffee. Maybe their bone broth blendies (hot) and collagen smoothies (cold) would be better, but I had miles to go.

The next stop was a burger café, which
also had frozen whole chickens, quarts of refrigerated broth, and two urns of
hot broth: traditional (beef/pork) and poultry (duck/chicken/turkey). The
latter was as bland and unappealing as my previous tastings. The traditional
blend was delicious. It was if I was gnawing the last crispy bits of steak off
a T-bone. The cook explained that he roasted the bones for about an hour before
simmering them for 48 more. Condiments enhanced the pleasure. My favorite was a
stirred-in spoonful of parsley-garlic pesto.

Lunch time! I found a counter seat at a bustling hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese café. The meatball pho came in a huge bowl with cilantro, onion, and bean sprouts garnishing the rice noodles and broth. Good, and certainly filling, but since all the ingredients complicated my quest for tasting bone broth, I decided to pass on the other nearby Vietnamese eateries that day.

I next cycled to a health food café. In addition to “Classic Chicken or Beef Broth” I could order either one with added ingredients such as turmeric, ghee, schizandra berry, cabbage, and jalapeno to produce “Anti-Inflammatory Broth,” “Butter Broth,” “Immunity Broth,” “Gut Broth,” or “Skinny Broth.” They all cost $10-$12 for 12 ounces, and for $2 more, I could “add collagen with 10 grams of protein.”

While sipping my Classic Beef, I browsed the foyer bookshelf and flipped through Dr. Kellyann’s Bone Broth Diet, which claimed I could lose up to 15 pounds, 4 inches (didn’t say from where), and my wrinkles in 21 days. Despite those remarkable claims on the cover, inside Dr. Kellyann did note that boiling bone converts collagen to gelatin. She went on, however, to extol the purported health benefits of gelatin. Like many other advocates, she cherry-picked research results that supported her claims while ignoring the abundance of literature that has found no significant benefits of bone broth over eating a generally healthy diet. Also, I am typically wary of products claiming to cleanse and detox. How did these health trendistas let themselves get soiled and toxed in the first place?

Now at the end of my bone broth adventure, I had an uneasy feeling, perhaps caused by sudden weight loss or immunity gain. I knew for sure, however, that a whole class of taste buds had gone unstimulated all day. Before hopping back on my bike and heading to the office, I stopped at Burger King for a soothing Oreo milkshake.

]]>0Royhttps://aboutbone.com/?p=13972019-01-05T16:08:41Z2018-12-28T13:39:45ZIn the 1950s, about the same time that John Charnley was perfecting total hip replacement surgery in England (see previous blog posts), American Paul Harrington addressed a vexing spine problem. To understand the problem, consider that a snake slithers along by curving its spine repeatedly from side to side. By comparison, a human’s spine is…

]]>In the 1950s, about the same time that John Charnley was perfecting total hip replacement surgery in England (see previous blog posts), American Paul Harrington addressed a vexing spine problem. To understand the problem, consider that a snake slithers along by curving its spine repeatedly from side to side. By comparison, a human’s spine is not as flexible. It can bend a little from left to right but is normally straight when its owner stands tall. If a human spine develops a curve to the side that does not go away when standing at attention, the bend is unbalanced and tends to progress. Untreated, the spine can collapse to the side and cause shortened stature, an unsightly humpback, and in some conditions even compression of the heart and lungs inside a twisted ribcage. A compromised life ensues.

This spinal side-to-side curve is called scoliosis. In the mid 20th century, polio-induced muscle imbalance was the main cause of this debilitating deformity, and orthopedists tried various spine stretching and bracing devices to correct, or at least halt, the deformity’s progression. As you might imagine, gaining adequate control to align the head over the pelvis with a brace consisting of metal struts, leather straps, and horsehair pads proved to be nearly impossible. Comfort was certainly not a priority. Attempts at surgical correction were similarly primitive and tortuous. Illustrated above are two patented, yet unsuccessful attempts to address the problem.

Although not by choice, Paul Harrington happened to be at the right place at the right time to make a difference. He had grown up in Kansas and played on three consecutive championship basketball teams at the University of Kansas. Thereafter he attended medical school and completed orthopedic surgery residency training in Kansas City. On return from overseas duty after World War II, job opportunities were scarce. He found one in Houston that nobody else wanted–surgeon for the polio clinic.

Polio was then epidemic, although its viral cause was unknown, and the Salk vaccine to prevent it was a decade away. Harrington, confronted with a large number of children and teenagers with post-polio scoliosis, went to work with the clinic’s brace makers. They made stainless steel hooks that during surgery Harrington attached to the spine above and below the curved sections. He connected the hooks with a notched rod on the concave side of the curve and ratcheted the spine straight, akin to jacking up a car. Similar hooks, connected with a tensioned cable, helped stabilize the correction on the convex side of the curve. Harrington then fused the portion of the spine that was now spanned by the instrumentation.

After surgery, the patient remained immobile until the fusion solidified. Months of bed rest were followed by several more in a plaster cast or brace that ran from chin to hips. At times a hook dislodged, the rod broke, infection occurred, or the spine did not fuse. Undaunted, Harrington, kept meticulous notes on each patient and gradually perfected the instrumentation, surgical technique, and post-operative regimen. This attention to detail eventually reduced the incidence of complications from 77% initially to zero, where it remained even after several hundred patients.

In 1958, he presented his results to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons where his iconoclasm was met with astonishment, skepticism, and derision. A few, however, wanted to try his technique, and Harrington insisted that they first visit him and observe the procedure. Acceptance was gradual. In 1960, Time Magazine reported, “Some ailments seem almost preferable to their cures. A case in point is scoliosis, . . . treatment seems so punishing that [parents] cannot be persuaded to permit it even to save their children from permanent deformity. Last week Houston surgeon Paul Harrington, MD, was winning converts to a new and happier method.”

As with most innovations, more advanced instrumentation has supplanted Harrington’s system in the following decades. These provide better immediate stability and eliminate the need for post-operative bedrest and bracing. The new devices also allow for preservation of the natural front-to-back curves in the spine while correcting the dreaded side-to-side bowing. Although polio has all but disappeared in first-world countries, Harrington’s pioneering work still has purpose for injury-induced spinal instability and for scoliosis from other causes. When seeking work, knowingly or unknowingly, Harrington subscribed to the aphorism, “Go where you are needed,” and his diligence in Houston paid off.

]]>10Royhttps://aboutbone.com/?p=12802019-01-29T15:34:39Z2018-12-03T19:01:40ZFor those hard-to-please people on your holiday shopping list, surprise them with a bone-related gift. The options are vast, but for inclusion here, my 14 recommendations had to meet these criteria: no real bone no skull motifs nothing blatantly Halloween or goth nothing risque (Yes, there are glow-in-the-dark undergarments.) nothing over $9.99 (The final and…

]]>For those hard-to-please people on your holiday shopping list, surprise them with a bone-related gift. The options are vast, but for inclusion here, my 14 recommendations had to meet these criteria:

no real bone

no skull motifs

nothing blatantly Halloween or goth

nothing risque (Yes, there are glow-in-the-dark undergarments.)

nothing over $9.99 (The final and best one is free.)

Happy gifting. Also, forward this post to those who will be shopping for you with a “hint, hint.”

]]>5Royhttps://aboutbone.com/?p=6772018-11-14T00:18:11Z2018-11-14T00:18:11ZIt is currently mid-season for turkey hunting in California. The smart toms by this time have become jaded to the previously persuasive squawks and clucks generated by commercially available box, diaphragm, and rattle callers. Enterprising hunters therefore may turn to a homemade device that Native Americans began using at least 6500 years ago–the wing bone…

]]>It is currently mid-season for turkey hunting in California. The smart toms by this time have become jaded to the previously persuasive squawks and clucks generated by commercially available box, diaphragm, and rattle callers. Enterprising hunters therefore may turn to a homemade device that Native Americans began using at least 6500 years ago–the wing bone turkey caller.

To make one, clean, dry, and save the three long wing bones from last year’s trophy, or you can purchase the same bones ready-to-go on Etsy. At first glance, the shafts of these three bones are cylindrical, but on scrutiny they are faintly conical. First, saw off the ends of each and use a wire to clean out the spongy interiors. With a bit of filing, the narrow end of one bone will fit nicely into the wide end of the next larger one. Seal the junctions, and voila, a primitive trumpet.

Well, not exactly. To attract your Thanksgiving dinner, first position yourself in a safe location where turkeys will not swarm you. Then place the small end of the caller between your pursed lips and make a quick series of kissing sounds. While doing so, open and close your cupped hands around the caller’s open end to vary the resonance, pitch, and intensity of the sound, which is best described as a yelp. Hear what I mean (one minute YouTube video).

Wing bones from wild turkeys are said to work much better than those from grocery-store birds, which probably were entirely flightless and therefore never developed any serious bulk to their wing bones. To challenge the advice that wild is better, I salvaged the bones from a baked chicken and made what may be the world’s first wing bone chicken caller. It seems durable enough and produces a higher pitched yelp than my turkey caller. I have not yet tried it outside so I am unsure of its effectiveness.

For those who will be dining this month on tofu turkey and who are adverse to the idea of using an animal part to hunt the original owner’s offspring, a plastic straw works pretty well too. Try it. You will delight everyone at the holiday table.

]]>0Royhttps://aboutbone.com/?p=12532018-11-06T18:42:10Z2018-10-30T08:13:16ZHalloween is the time of year that unrepentant boneheads such as myself can revel in ubiquitous displays and celebrations involving Admittedly, some presentations are schlocky beyond our wildest nightmares, and yet few are frightful. Skeletons, skulls, mummies, gravestones, cobwebs, and ghouls are more or less amusing. This was not originally the case, particularly for…

]]>Halloween is the time of year that unrepentant boneheads such as myself can revel in ubiquitous displays and celebrations involving

Admittedly, some presentations are schlocky beyond our wildest nightmares, and yet few are frightful. Skeletons, skulls, mummies, gravestones, cobwebs, and ghouls are more or less amusing. This was not originally the case, particularly for skulls.

From its overall shape and its dark, cavernous eye sockets and nasal cavities, a skull’s origin is unmistakable—human yet not human. The time when the depiction of a skull first symbolized death is ancient and debatable. The portrayal extends back at least to the early Christian era. For example, a tabletop mosaic discovered at Pompeii depicts a human skull positioned beneath a carpenter’s square and plumb bob, which together represented death–the great leveler. Within the next century, skulls and crossed thigh bones began showing up on catacomb crypts in Italy.

Several hundred years later, Crusader knights adopted the skull and cross bones for their banners, perhaps co-opting the symbol–one of ferocity and gravity–from pirates cruising the nearby Mediterranean. Later on, bottles of poison, military units, and motorcycle gangs have also used the symbol to make their intentions clear.

Remembrance more than fear or terror, however, was the main intent of skull art the Middle Ages, when funeral art and architecture incorporated stone carvings of skulls. Paint on canvas was not far behind, and artists embellished the stark message of memento mori (remember that you must die) over the following centuries.

Durer in 1521 and Caravaggio in 1605 made this message clear.

One entire genre of memento mori were the Vanitas (emptiness, futility in Latin) paintings. Over time, this theme grew in popularity and peaked among Dutch painters in the 1500’s and 1600’s. Art museums abound with paintings from this time that symbolically depict the transience and worthlessness of earthly existence: skulls, stubs of flickering candles, rotting fruit, bubbles, hour glasses, and … well, you get the idea.

A century later, poet and mystic William Blake scrapped all of the props and effectively conveyed the fleeting nature of life by a skeleton alone–in an exaggerated fetal position.

Beginning in the 19th century, skulls seemed to lose their stigma as a symbol of death among artists. Rather, painters found them fascinating objects to portray because of their various curves, reflective surfaces, and strongly contrasting areas of light and dark.

When I look at these paintings by Cezanne, I do not get the picture that he was worried about death or that he was trying to worry me. It seems as if he just got bored with painting peaches and pears.

Conversely, Van Gogh may have had mixed feelings about skull symbolism. He completed these three paintings within a year of each other. Whereas one shouts death, the other two are less emotionally evocative, although I am not sure that I would want to hang either of them over my sofa.

Then comes Picasso–playful and awesomely creative and progressively so over his career.

Without having seen the sequence of Picasso’s skulls, I am not sure that I would have recognized that his 1946 rendition includes a skull.

Other artists also disguised skulls in their works. Holbein’s TheAmbassadors contains one in the middle foreground, but it is indistinguishable when viewed straight on. It jumps out, however, when the original painting (National Gallery, London) is viewed up close and looking up from the left or down from the right. Charles Allan Gilbert did not play with perspective, just with our mind’s interest in searching for familiarity. Sometimes it gets tricked.

Georgia O’Keeffe painted mainly bovine skulls but now and then a human one. Of course, Salvador Dali painted some strange ones.

Skull art seems to hold continuing fascination for many contemporary artists and for some wealthy connoisseurs. Regardless whether you would want to hang the one below on the left in your salon, it sold at auction in 1982 for $110.5 million. Christie’s tried to auction the one on the right on October 4, 2018. There was one bid for $13.6 million, which was below the reserve of $15 million, so the folk at Christie’s can use it to decorate their Halloween party.

]]>0Royhttps://aboutbone.com/?p=12492018-11-06T18:43:06Z2018-10-16T08:01:49ZNaturally curious, you may have asked yourself how bones get from their living condition–muscle-covered, cartilage-capped, and fat-filled–to the inert, dry, aesthetically pleasing material so widely exhibited and valued. If you are not curious about how this transition takes place, you may wish to skip this post. When a dead animal is left exposed to the…

]]>Naturally curious, you may have asked yourself how bones get from their living condition–muscle-covered, cartilage-capped, and fat-filled–to the inert, dry, aesthetically pleasing material so widely exhibited and valued. If you are not curious about how this transition takes place, you may wish to skip this post.

When a dead animal is left exposed to the elements, it takes a year or two for the soft tissues covering the bones to weather away and for micro-organisms and small insects to feast on and completely remove the fat from the bones’ interiors. (The wee beasties get in and out through the same small channels that the blood vessels used during life.) By happenstance, craftspeople may come across such naturally cleaned and dried bones on the beach, desert, or forest floor, and if so, they can immediately go to work repurposing them. During the natural transformation, however, scavenging animals may carry some or all of the bones off and destroy them.

How do scientists, museum staffs, and craftspeople hasten the transformation and ensure that the bones will still be there for their interests when the cleaning is complete? The three approaches are the same ones taken by the US Marines: land, sea, and air. For bone preparation, each course has its advantages and disadvantages. They are all accelerated if the skin, muscles, and innards are first removed, but patience will even replace this grizzly step should one desire.

Burying the remains (deeply enough to prevent scavenging) has the advantage of being stink free. Before internment, I wrap my treasures in nylon mesh so that I can easily retrieve even the small bones in due time. This process usually takes six to twelve months. Presently I am patiently waiting on a squirrel (road kill), a moose cannon bone (hunter friend in Alaska), a chicken (Whole Foods), and a small pig (Hawaiian luau).

The same transformation from messy to beautiful is greatly accelerated by placing the remains in a bucket of water, or huge vat if you are preparing an elephant. This method is extremely offensive to the nose and so should be done far from habitation. Change the water every few weeks, ideally during a wind storm or when you have a severe cold with complete nasal congestion.

Air transformation may not be quite so stinky but still needs to be done outside and certainly not under an open window. The bones need to be wrapped in window screen or hardware cloth to prevent predation. I and others keep such weighted-down preparations on our roofs (unbeknownst to our spouses).

To accelerate air transformation, commercial preparers and university and museum lab techs often employ dermestid beetles. These little critters love carrion and could not care less about bone, so they quickly nibble them clean, with their smallest larvae doing the inside job. Should you wish, the beetles are available for both viewing and purchase on the internet. Before considering ownership, however, understand that they need continuous feeding, so they are not practical for just a one-time harvesting of a Thanksgiving turkey skeleton, for instance.

After the transformation by whatever means is complete, a soak in hydrogen peroxide will further whiten the bones and render them lovely and ivory-like. Conversely here are two ways to absolutely ruin your hard-earned specimens. As intuitive at it might seem, do not use household bleach. It may work fine on grass stains and wine dribbles, but it permanently softens and pits the bone making it unappealing to handle and unsuitable for crafting or display. Boiling also renders them nasty, but for a different reason. It drives the marrow fat into the dense, naturally fat-free, outer portions. The fat in this new location is inaccessible to wee beasties of all sorts and leaves the bones with a permanent greasy appearance and feel.